American pair: good 3twist, side by side 3T OK, good throw 3L. Should go into first place

Nope, second place. Strange

This was a big injustice. Amanda and Mark are a better pair than Gerboldt/Enbert in every way. Should have been several points HIGHER. Or if E/L scores are acceptable, G/E's should have been lower. They had some mistakes and a pretty blah schmaltzy program. Maybe not strange--easily explained by Russian home field bonus.

She was injured, the program was not polished, they were slow and tentative, but there were some nice moves there. I say, give them some time. Last season they had a mediocre GP showing, placing below Mukhortova/Trankov at the GPF but then they took the European title.

Competently done, and I'm sure they can keep making improvements, but this music is almost too big to skate to. I'm not getting into the mood with this vehicle. I also think it's not going to help them against the other top 2-3 pairs.

This was a big injustice. Amanda and Mark are a better pair than Gerboldt/Enbert in every way. Should have been several points HIGHER. Or if E/L scores are acceptable, G/E's should have been lower. They had some mistakes and a pretty blah schmaltzy program. Maybe not strange--easily explained by Russian home field bonus.

What home field bonus? Gerboldt/Enbert got 54.10 points in France at Coupe de Nice with a FALL. In Russia they appear to have been cleaner yet received a slightly lower score. So if anything, G/E got a home ice deduction. http://www.nice-baie-des-anges.fr/im...tml/SEG011.HTM

Maybe it was my feed, but Yuko Kavaguti looks skinnier than ever, which is scary because she was already too thin. She has good stretch on some of her moves, but the extreme skinniness wrecks it for me completely.

Their triple twist has poor technique and had a collision, she barely held on to the 3T, and the throw triple loop wasn't landed that great, but compared to the overall weakness of the field, first place seems justified. I like their music somewhat... it's different.

Mark Ladwig seemed off on the SBS spins and Amanda's SBS 3T may have been underrotated... That may have put them behind G&E.

I am SOOOO happy Amanda & Mark skated clean! That's held them back in the past (skating bad in the SP) so for them to finally be skating clean short programs...wow, that's going to really help them a lot. I read somewhere else that they may have not gotten some levels on their elements (along with the downgrade on the triple toe) so if they can fix that for US Nats, they'll be in great shape and I'm sure Jim Peterson is all ready looking at it. They usually do that sort of thing during their summer competitions but they only did one of those this year due to the longer season last year. Skating clean here is a great first step though and hopefully they can skate great tomorrow and sneak in there for a medal! That would be AWESOME.

Also, the difference between 4th and 3rd is about a point. I wouldn't worry too much about it. I think the key thing, as everyone said, that E/L skated clean (albeit imperfet). I expect better things for them in the LP, that seems to be where they shine.